


Pack Up, Don't Stray

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: What Maisie Knew (2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Post-Movie(s), Sad Kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Margo and Lincoln didn't fight like Mommy and Daddy had fought, with a lot of yelling and banging on things.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pack Up, Don't Stray

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Iulia for beta, and to riverlight for letting me drag her into this with me. <3
> 
> Title is from "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
> 
> Written for the "fighting" square in Hurt/Comfort Bingo.

When it was time for Maisie to go to school again, she and Margo and Lincoln all went back to Mommy's together and stayed there. Mommy was still on tour, so it was just the three of them. Margo's old bedroom wasn't a bedroom anymore, and she and Lincoln didn't want to sleep in Mommy's room, so they usually slept on the couches. Sometimes, when Lincoln was working late, Margo would fall asleep in Maisie's room. When Maisie woke up Lincoln would be there too, stretched out asleep on the floor beside them, and Maisie wanted to stay right there forever.

They couldn't, though. One night Maisie woke up and Lincoln was pacing around, whispering angrily into a phone while Margo put things into bags. When Lincoln saw that Maisie was awake he hung up the phone without saying goodbye. He helped Maisie get dressed and put a jacket on while Margo finished packing. 

They took a long ride on the subway, and Maisie sat in Lincoln's lap with her feet in Margo's, next to one of the bags Margo had packed. Maisie fell asleep like that and woke up again while they were walking and walking and walking. Margo was carrying her now, while Lincoln carried all the bags. Maisie got down and walked, carrying her own backpack, until they got to Margo's Uncle Andrew's house.

They lived at Uncle Andrew's for a while, even though it meant taking a long train ride to get to Maisie's school and Lincoln's work. Maisie didn't mind, because every night when she went to sleep on the couch in the basement, she knew that in a little while Margo and Lincoln would be there too. They slept on an air mattress on the floor, between the couch and the TV, and in the morning Maisie could slide down off the couch onto the squishy, half-deflated air mattress. Margo would wrap her arms around Maisie and scoot back a little, and then Lincoln would reach over and pat her shoulder without opening his eyes. Even though Maisie could feel the hard concrete floor under her butt, and her toys and most of her clothes were in cardboard boxes, and they had to share the kitchen and bathroom with Uncle Andrew and Aunt Leah and The Cousins, they were all together and everything was okay.

After Thanksgiving they moved out of Uncle Andrew's house, back to Manhattan, to Our Very Own Apartment, which Lincoln and Margo always said just like that, with capitals. The apartment wasn't much bigger than Uncle Andrew's basement. It only had one bedroom--Maisie's bedroom, that Margo decorated for her. 

It didn't have a canopy bed or a balcony, but it had her ponies and her bookshelves and it was hers. Margo and Lincoln slept on the other side of the wall, on the couch from Uncle Andrew's basement that folded out into a big bed. Maisie shared her closet with them. She liked seeing Margo's skirts and Lincoln's work clothes hanging up next to her dresses, and all their shoes lined up together. 

Sometimes it was strange having her own bedroom again. Maisie would wake up and not know where she was, or why Margo and Lincoln weren't right where she could see them. But after a while she would remember that she was in Our Very Own Apartment and then she would go and open the bedroom door and there they were. Sometimes they were sleeping already, or sometimes they were still watching TV, with the couch still folded up like a couch, and either way Maisie could go and climb up with them. Sometimes they were watching The Daily Show or Conan, and Maisie would ask them why they were laughing, just to hear them laugh some more when they tried to explain. Sometimes Maisie crawled into bed next to Margo and shared her pillow. Sometimes it happened when Lincoln still wasn't home from work yet, and then Margo would pull Maisie right into her lap and they would wait for him together.

Tonight when Maisie got out of bed she knew right away that Margo and Lincoln were both home. She could hear them fighting. 

They didn't fight like Mommy and Daddy had fought, with a lot of yelling and banging on things. But when Maisie opened the door--quietly, just a tiny crack at first so she could peek through--she could hear them whispering back and forth. The whispering sounded just like Lincoln on the phone that night when they had to leave Mommy's apartment and go stay with Uncle Andrew. 

Maisie couldn't see them from her spot behind the bedroom door, and she couldn't tell what they were fighting about. She hadn't ever heard them fight before. There had been a few times when one of them had told Maisie that they were annoyed or angry or frustrated with the other, when they didn't talk to each other and didn't smile, but it always got better pretty soon. It had never been like this, never a real fight like Mommy and Daddy had had but quiet and secret, so that Maisie wouldn't even have known if she hadn't woken up. 

It felt awful. Hearing Margo and Lincoln fight was like waking up in a strange place, like not knowing where she was even after she was all the way awake. Maisie felt like if she stepped through the door the people outside would be strangers and wouldn't take her home even if she asked them to, even if she told them her address, which Margo and Lincoln had made her memorize along with their phone numbers, Just In Case.

And then Maisie heard Lincoln say, "Fine," right out loud, sharp and final. He crossed through the little sliver she could see through her barely-open door, walking fast toward the door out of the apartment.

Maisie wanted to scream, but she couldn't make a sound. She pushed her door wide open and rushed out after him, and Margo said, "Maisie!" 

Maisie froze. 

Lincoln hadn't gotten to the door yet. He stopped and turned around when Margo said her name.

There was a funny look on his face. He looked at Maisie and didn't say anything, and Margo didn't say anything. Maisie tried and tried to say something, but the awful feeling of being lost was still making her throat all tight like when she got sick.

Finally Maisie whispered, "Don't go."

Lincoln shook his head quickly. "Hey, no, I wasn't--"

"Don't lie," Maisie whispered, a little bit louder, and that one she didn't have to try at all to say.

Lincoln winced, but he came away from the door and knelt down in front of Maisie. "I was going to go outside, yeah, but I wasn't leaving like leaving. I was just going to catch my breath and give Margo a minute to stop being mad at me before it's time to go to bed."

"Don't go outside," Maisie insisted, stepping forward and putting her arms around Lincoln's neck to keep him there.

"Yeah, okay, I won't, don't worry," Lincoln said, putting his arms around her. 

Margo still hadn't said anything, and Maisie looked over her shoulder to see where she was. Margo was standing by the couch with her arms folded, looking tired and unhappy. 

"Don't go," Maisie repeated. "Please."

"I wasn't going anywhere," Margo said, but then she sighed and added, "Come here, come sit down."

Lincoln picked Maisie up as he stood and carried her over to the couch. When he sat down with Maisie folded in his lap, Margo came over and knelt beside them and put her arms around Maisie too. But not around Lincoln, and Lincoln didn't touch Margo, either.

"Why were you fighting?" Maisie asked. Her throat still hurt, but she felt better with both of them there, holding on to her. They were Margo and Lincoln. They weren't strangers now.

"We weren't," Lincoln said, at the same time Margo said, "Lincoln wants."

They both stopped, and Maisie squirmed against their grips enough to look at their faces. They were looking at each other, and then Lincoln said, "Go ahead, Margo, tell Maisie what I want."

Margo looked away. 

Lincoln looked at Maisie, and she looked back at him, raising her eyebrows and waiting for an answer. 

"I think Margo and I should get married," Lincoln said, because Margo still hadn't said anything. "We can, now, because all the divorces are final, and we have the guardianships and custody and everything. So it wouldn't change anything except that Margo wouldn't have to worry about her visa anymore."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't have to worry about anything except proving to immigration that the _second_ time I got married in six months I _really_ meant it," Margo snapped. "I wouldn't have to worry about anything except being _deported_."

"Margo, we live together, we literally have a kid together, they're not going to--" Lincoln cut himself off. "And that's the part where I was going to go outside," Lincoln said to Maisie.

"What's deported?" Maisie could tell it was something bad; Margo sounded like she might cry. Maisie put her hand on Margo's and Margo turned to curl her fingers tight around Maisie's.

"It means sent away," Margo said. "I would never leave you, Maisie, but they could send me back to Scotland and tell me I'm not allowed to come back, ever."

Maisie tightened her grip on Margo and looked up at Lincoln. "Can we go to Scotland with Margo?"

Lincoln blinked a couple of times. "Probably, yeah," Lincoln said, and Margo looked up sharply, her hair swinging around her face. 

"You could be a citizen there, because your dad's from England--it's sort of all one country, really," Lincoln said, and he settled his hand over Maisie's where she was holding Margo's. 

"And if I was married to Margo they'd probably let me come with you. Or I could try to get a student visa and go to culinary school there, do it right this time. Or maybe your dad could help me find a job, he probably knows a lot of people in London. It could be the world's most roundabout overdue payment of child support. Even if I had to be a bartender in a pub in Edinburgh forever, I would come with you if I possibly could, I promise."

"If it's all one country could I see Daddy sometimes?" Maisie asked.

Lincoln looked over at Margo. "I don't know, what do you think? Could we do that?"

Margo wiped her eyes, and said, "I'm sure you could, Maisie. We could live near London, I could find a job down there. London's kind of like New York. But you couldn't go to your school anymore, and your mum wouldn't be there."

Maisie put her other hand down on top of Lincoln's hand so she could hold on to both of them. 

"But we could have an apartment there?" Maisie asked. "Together?"

Lincoln looked over at Margo, so Maisie looked at her too. 

Margo wiped her eyes with her free hand, and said, "Well ask properly, if you're going to ask, Lincoln."

"Yeah?" Lincoln said. "Yeah, okay--here, Maisie, let me--" Lincoln slid down off the couch to kneel in front of Margo, and Maisie went with him, standing tucked against his side, her hands still holding their hands together.

"I, uh, I don't have a ring or anything," Lincoln said. "We can, um, we can do that later, if you want, but--Margo, will you marry me?"

Margo smiled, wiped her eyes again, and looked at Maisie. "What do you think? Should I?"

Maisie nodded quickly, her hair flying up and down. 

"Sometime this month, please," Lincoln added. "Before your visa expires."

"Yes, okay, yes," Margo said, starting to laugh, and she leaned over their joined hands to kiss Lincoln, putting her arm around Maisie as she did. 

Maisie leaned her head against Margo's shoulder and wanted to stay right there forever.


End file.
